The Department of Art History at The Pennsylvania State University seeks to appoint a three-year fixed-term assistant teaching professor with a specialization in ancient or medieval architecture of any geography. The appointment will begin on August 1, 2019 and carry the possibility of renewal. We are particularly interested in candidates conversant in diverse methodologies, including those involving new technologies and/or technical art history. The department values dynamic teachers who are prepared to lead upper level undergraduate and graduate courses in their field, as well as teach large introductory classes in the history of Western architecture. Expectations include undergraduate advising, graduate mentoring, and departmental and university service. Preference will be given to candidates who have a Ph.D. in art history or a related discipline.

To apply go to https://psu.edu.jobs/ job #84579, candidates should upload a letter of application, an up-to-date CV, and the names and contact information for three references to the Penn State Electronic Job Management System. Applications received by January 15 will be assured full consideration. However, applications will be accepted until the position is filled.

Penn State is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer, and is committed to providing employment opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status.

The Shohet Scholars Grant Program of the International Catacomb Society is now accepting applications to the Shohet Scholars cohort of 2019–20. Submission deadline is January 15, 2019 (11:59 p.m. EST).

This annual grant program funds research on the Ancient Mediterranean from the Hellenistic Era to the Early Middle Ages. Shohet Scholars may do their research in the fields of archeology, art history, classical studies, history, comparative religions, or related subjects. Of special interest are interdisciplinary projects that approach traditional topics from new perspectives.

One or more Shohet Scholars will be selected each year. The primary intent of the grant is to support significant, innovative research that can be completed and reported upon within and shortly after the award period. Grants may be made to seed innovative approaches and new ideas or to cover specific expenses or phases of a larger project under the direction of the applicant. At this time, awards in the range of $2,000 to $30,000 will be made. A complete history of past and present Shohet Scholars awards is available on the ICS webpage, www.catacombsociety.org.

Eligibility
Scholars of all institutional affiliations and independent scholars may apply for Shohet Scholar funding if they are individual or institutional members of the ICS at the time of the application submission deadline of January 15, 2019 and in possession of a doctoral degree or the equivalent.

Non-U.S. citizens may apply if a co-applicant is a legal permanent resident (i.e. already in possession of “green card” or Form I-551) or native or naturalized citizen of the U.S.A., meets all eligibility requirements, and has a genuinely collaborative and credited leadership role in the proposal. Co-applicants must submit as individuals all the necessary forms except for the research proposal, list of permissions, and budget proposal, which may be filed jointly.

Deadlines and Decisions
The application deadline for the 2018-2019 academic year is January 15, 2019. The award announcement for the 2019-2020 academic year will be made by May 1, 2019, for funding to be disbursed on 15 July 2019. Please note: starting in 2018, all funding is awarded directly to the USA-based awardee, for distribution among project co-applicants and collaborators. The ICS will no longer wire or transfer money to bank accounts outside of the USA.

Click here for application forms and instructions and here for assistance.

Questions ?
If you have any questions about the suitability of proposed projects, application procedures, or any other matters related to the Shohet Scholars Program, please consult our FAQ page or contact us at shohetscholars (at) catacombsociety.org.

The Courtauld Institute of Art’s 23rd Annual Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium invites speakers to consider the nature of medieval collections, the context of their creation and fruition, and their legacy – or disappearance – in the present.

Existing approaches to the subject help to understand the formation, dispersal, and reassembly of groupings of objects. However, broadening the scope of what a medieval collection is can open new paths of exploration. From immense palace networks to single-volume manuscripts, a wide range of objects can pose complex and exciting questions regarding how physical and conceptual similarity and proximity shaped making and meaning in the Middle Ages.

The Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium offers the opportunity for research students at all levels from universities across the UK and abroad to present and promote their research.

Organised by Costanza Beltrami (The Courtauld Institute of Art / The Auckland Project) and Maggie Crosland (The Courtauld Institute of Art) with the generous support of The Sackler Research Forum.

The Courtauld Institute of Art is the UK’s leading institution for teaching and research in Art History and the conservation of paintings; it is also home to one of the finest small art museums in the world. The Art History department has an outstanding research and teaching record from Late Antiquity to the Contemporary with an increasingly global outlook, and embraces its diversity of theoretical approaches and methodologies.

The Courtauld wishes to appoint a full-time Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Art History, to begin on 1 September 2018. The successful candidate will complement the existing teaching strengths of the Department and will have a research focus in any region or period from c.1400-1800. We seek an art historian who situates their research in a wider, global context, and who shares a ‘decentred’ approach that avoids focus on only a single part of the world. An ideal candidate would be able to teach across at least one other field in a way directed by concepts of exchange and interaction, and to build bridges with other areas of art historical investigation. The candidate is expected to be able to situate their work in the theoretical and historiographical debates in their specialised research area and also engage with current issues in global Art History.

The appointee will research and publish to the highest quality and will actively pursue and apply for appropriate research grants; will provide inspiring teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels; and will play an active role in the life and administration of The Courtauld.

Four postdoc fellowships in total are available for funding. Applicants must be anchored at a university, museum or other knowledge institution in Denmark during the grant period. The fellowships run for two years and amount to DKK 1.5 million covering salary, operational costs and administrative fee.

Five PhD scholarships in total are available for funding. Applicants must be enrolled at a university in Denmark and anchored at a host institution in Denmark. The scholarships run for three years and amount to DKK 2 million covering salary, operational costs and administrative fee,.

Applications must be completed and submitted using the foundation’s application system, which can be accessed via the foundation’s website.

Historians of Western medieval, Byzantine, and Islamic art are invited to contribute essays to a volume on the representation of precious metalwork in medieval manuscripts.

The makers of medieval manuscripts frequently placed special emphasis on the depiction of precious-metal objects, both sacred and secular, including chalices, reliquaries, crosses, tableware, and figural sculpture. Artists typically rendered these objects using gold, silver, and metal alloys, “medium-specific” materials that richly and pointedly contrasted with the surrounding color pigments. The visual characteristics of these depicted metal things—lustrous yet flat, almost anti-representational—could dazzle, but perhaps also disorient: they grab the eye while creating a fertile tension between the representation of an object and the presentation of a precious stuff, between the pictorial and the material. A gold-leaf chalice signals its referent both iconically, via its shape, and indexically, via its metal material—a semiotic duality unavailable to the remainder of the painted miniature—and such images might accrue additional complexities when intended to represent known real-world objects.

This volume of essays will take inventory of how manuscript illuminators chose to depict precious metalwork and how these depictions generated meaning. The prominent application of metal leaf is one of the most distinguishing features of medieval manuscript illumination (only those books thus decorated technically merit the designation “illuminated”), and yet, despite its hallmark status, it has rarely served as a central subject of scholarly scrutiny and critique. In addressing both the use of metal leaf and the representation of precious-metal objects (via metallic and non-metallic media alike), Illuminating Metalwork seeks to remedy this lacuna. This volume will enhance traditionally fruitful approaches to medieval manuscript illumination, such as those analyzing text/image dynamics, pictorial mimesis, or public vs. private reception, by considering issues of materiality, preciousness, and presence. By focusing on the representation of precious metalwork, these studies will introduce new paths of inquiry beyond the depiction of actual objects and incorporate analyses of the use and simulation of metallic preciousness more broadly.

We invite essays that represent the full temporal and geographic scope of medieval manuscript painting—from Late Antiquity into the early modern era, from the Latin West to the Byzantine and Islamic East—in order to foster trans-historical and cross-cultural analysis. Possible themes include: chronological/geographical specificities in the representation of metalwork in manuscript illuminations; depictions of precious-metal figural sculpture, including idols; artistic technique and technical analysis (e.g. pigment vs. leaf, and the alloys used therein); the semiotics of metal on parchment; the phenomenology of the encounter; and whether we can speak of “portraits” of particular objects and/or visual “inventories” of specific collections.